A* Coursework Narrative for IGCSE First Language English

IGCSE Literature in English 0475 - The City Planners by Margaret Atwood

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A* Coursework Narrative – Exemplar

The Mage’s Apprentice

The full moon stared down in dismay as Leisl sighed. She had only a moment until the rite must be performed, yet the leaves on the ancient oak tree refused to regrow. Geisterholz Forest remained barren; bare branches twisted their arthritic fingers into the gloom of the blackened sky.

Spirits of the arcane, heed my command, she thought, pressing her fingers into the mossy bark of the tree. Bloom once again, renew these seasons and accept me as your Mage.

“Bah,” she huffed, slapping her hands against the ground. A murder of crows took to the sky, screeching in protest at Leisl’s disturbance of the silent forest.

“You think the Mothers will spring forth new life to those who abuse it so?”

Leisl jumped. She hadn’t heard Hilde’s approach – well, she supposed she hadn’t approached so much as materialised. Hilde was draped in decadent velvet skirts and a cloak of poison ivy, looking down at Leisl with something close to amusement. But surely there was no merriment to be found tonight, on Hilde’s last night as Mage.

There couldn’t be anything particularly amusing about stepping down from your post to – to – well, Leisl didn’t know what would become of Hilde when she assumed her role. Her apprenticeship had seemed like something that would never end, yet here they were on the night of the full moon with Leisl’s hands gripping that wizened oak tree and still –

Still, she couldn’t make it spring forth with life.

In a flurry of frustration, Leisl commanded a flash of lightning to rip through the sky.

“Mmm. It is easier to bring forth destruction than it is to coax the world into living again…” mused Hilde, her face infuriatingly impassive.

Sensing Leisl’s angst, Hilde softly tugged Leisl’s hands free from the oak tree and clasped their hands together. Hilde’s hands had grown older even since daybreak, Leisl realised, skin papery and delicate with sudden age. The end was coming. She felt Hilde’s magic hum through the sinews of her flesh, felt the comfort and whisperings and assurances in her spell.

A cloud passed overhead, obscuring the moon from sight. Geisterholz Forest abruptly sunk into shadow.

Perhaps it was this darkness that gave Leisl the bravery to ask: “What will become of you, Mage?”

“What becomes of us all. I shall return.”

“And what will become of me?”

Moonlight filtered through the rickety woods again, and so Leisl saw the way Hilde’s eyes burned with a fierce sadness as she replied, “You will have your time just as I had, as the Mothers willed us to do. You will make the seasons spring forth, imbue these lands with life, and protect our sacred grounds with all your might.”

Leisl swallowed. “Without you.”

Hilde did not respond, but her spell brushed up against Leisl’s awareness, a warm hug on a bitter winter’s day.

As much as Leisl had always known that this day would come, that there could only ever be one Mage, she hadn’t truly understood the cavernous depths of being alone in the world. True, one day, she would have her own Apprentice replace her when the time came. But until then, would she usher in new seasons and watch the flowers blossom while Hilde just… ceased to be? Though she defied the laws of nature every day, something about this seemed so unnatural and cruel that it stole the breath from her lungs.

“I won’t do it,” gritted out Leisl, too cold with fear and anger to feel the tears pouring down her cheeks and onto the forest floor. “Why can’t there be more than one Mage? Or why must there be a Mage at all? I can’t – I just – can’t do it.”

Yet despite Leisl’s protests, Hilde’s body became evermore crooked with the creeping onset of age; the lines around her eyes deepened and her plump cheeks became gaunt.

“There are some things you cannot control, dear girl. This is one of them. I must return to the earth and you must replace me. As the sun rises and sets, so too must we. To try to strive for anything more is a deep cruelty to ourselves; fighting the inevitable will only cause more pain in the end.” Hilde dropped to her knees, cracking twigs as her diminishing body fell. “Leisl. It is time.”

And so it was that Leisl placed her palms onto the oak tree once more, her heart fixed on the potential of life beneath the soil, the hope of the sun rising for another day. The spirits came forth now, casting a glimmering violet light through the forest and shaking the branches with a low death rattle.

A single tulip bud struggled free from the ground: spring would come to Geisterholz Forest.

Leisl felt her body tingle as she knew that she had assumed the Mage’s powers and Hilde… was nowhere to be seen.

Now, with her deepened perception, Leisl cast out her awareness and realised with a jolt that Hilde, though no longer of this world, could be felt in every living creature for as far as she could brush against. Hilde was alive in the rings of the tree bark, in the warm snuffling nests of animals coming out of hibernation, in the trickle of water through the ravine. But not just Hilde, no. Leisl could sense the gentle touch of all the Mages that had come before Hilde… and she could sense a home waiting for her, too, when the time came.

Casting her eyes up to the oak tree, now shimmering with green leaves, Leisl smiled. “I understand now. Thank you, Hilde. Thank you, mother.”

(946 words)

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